ESR agrees to buy Aquila Clean Energy APAC and its 1.6GW portfolio
Victoria Shinder2 min readESR, a Singapore-headquartered owner and manager of logistics real estate and data centres, has agreed to acquire all of Aquila Clean Energy APAC from the Hamburg-based Aquila Group. The platform develops, owns and operates solar, battery storage and wind projects, and holds a 1.6GW portfolio of operating, under-construction and advanced-development assets across Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Energy-Storage.News reports that completion is expected by the first quarter of 2027, subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals. No price was given.
ESR presents the deal as convergence. Its president, Phil Pearce, said demand for logistics infrastructure, data centres and power is becoming increasingly interconnected, and the company's group head of infrastructure, Apurv Choudhary, said ESR intends to scale the platform significantly while keeping discipline on returns. Aquila's recent activity in the region includes the 38MW Omeheu solar plant in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty, energised in July, and a wider New Zealand pipeline of about 580MW that includes wind and battery projects still in development.
The same report recalls remarks made last month by Aquila Clean Energy APAC's general manager of energy markets, Thomas Schmitz, at an industry summit in Australia. He said battery revenues in the National Electricity Market had narrowed as arbitrage spreads compressed, and that developers whose financial models counted on coal plant closures were absorbing the cost of those closures being delayed.
What it means
A data-centre and logistics landlord buying a renewables developer is a bet on demand from its own tenants: power supply is becoming part of what a data-centre campus has to offer. It also brings a balance sheet to a business where, as Aquila's own executive described, merchant battery revenues have become harder to forecast.
The Schmitz remarks are the useful context. A battery earns from price spreads, and spreads depend on what else is on the system. When the retirements a model assumed arrive later, the spreads a battery was built to capture arrive later too. Owners with long-term demand of their own are better placed to carry that uncertainty than a standalone developer.